I Don't Mind, But I'm Not Surprised To Find That You Do
by yolochinchins
Summary: Nico sort of helps Jason deal with his life after Piper exits it. Part 1/? of the roommate 'verse, but can be read as a stand alone.


"You should get laid."

That's literally the first thing Nico has to say to Jason after Piper ripped out his heart three weeks ago and left her former beau alone to rot while she ran off to Lord knows where to study eggplants or something.

"Excuse me?" Jason chokes out, his voice going shrill and borderlining on seven year old girl high pitched.

"That's what Percy wanted me to tell you," Nico admits after twelve long minutes, most of which dealt with him sipping idly on his triple chocolate latte which is unsurprisingly 98% cocoa and 2% caffeine.

Thank someone upstairs with long white hair and lightning bolts because Jason was beginning to think his deader than death roommate was propositioning him, not that he liked the idea of Percy propositioning him either.

"I'm fine, thank you." Jason replies with after he's picked up his jaw from the ground and remembered why he left his room in the first place. Cereal, he wanted cereal.

Nico goes back to whatever it is he usually does (tormenting poor souls on QuizUp with his extensive knowledge on Mythomagic) and returns to his usual blatancy of pretending Jason and all that he does, does not exist.

So Jason scours the cabinets for cereal (why the hell do they have so many Wheat Thins, who has been buying Wheat Thins) until he finally settles on Froot Loops, pouring the colorful cereal into a possibly clean bowl, only to realize the only color of Froot Loops available is yellow, which means — lemon flavored.

He opens his mouth to ask Nico about it but he can hear the intense challenge music of QuizUp playing and remembers the last time he had interrupted one of Nico's games. Instead he decides he'll have to deal with the horrible lemon flavored Froot Loops and opens the fridge only to find a gallon of pure blue milk sitting in front of him.

Jason can't hold it in anymore, "Is this…"

He hears a horrifying ding of incorrectness and Nico sighs audibly (really freaking loud) indicating that he's just answered a question wrong. "What?" Nico asks with a snap, though not a real snap because his hands are still glued to his phone.

"Yellow Froot Loops. Blue milk. Wheat Thins. Why."

"Leo. Percy. Wheat Thins?" It's a legitimate question, no one knows where the sixteen boxes of Wheat Thins emerged from and Jason is feeling less curious and more afraid now.

Nico goes back to ignoring him and so Jason takes his disgusting yellow cereal with blue milk mixture back to his room and eats the gunk until he has another unwashed bowl to add to the ever growing pile on his nightstand. He hugs Eyebags close to his chest — an old stuffed panda bear he borrowed from Nico for cuddles and hugs because it was all the actual comfort Nico was going to give after The Break Up. Not that Jason didn't appreciate it, he practically issued every necessary hug from Eyebags since the night Nico had tossed it on his head and told him to shut the fuck up and go to sleep (Jason pretends that's just Nico giving him a cuddly comfort bear and being concerned for his health).

There's a knock on his bedroom door and he groans into Eyebags' side as he mumbles, "Go away." It's probably Percy or Leo or Reyna there to force him to come out and back into the world. Jason sort of finally understands why Nico hates going outside so much now.

"Jason, can I come in?" And this voice surprises him because it's Nico asking. Of course he doesn't wait for an actual answer and twists the door knob open and pushes his way in pass all the wrinkled clothes and old trash piles laying around the floor.

"I— You—" Jason stutters and Nico shoots him a glare.

"You're the worst English major ever and why the hell does it smell like moldy cheese in here? God, there's gotta be at least twenty health code violations in this room alone." Nico swats away a non-existent fly and tosses a clean towel at Jason. "Go shower, Hazel invited us over for dinner and I said we'd both go."

Jason groans again and pets Eyebags' head and covers his face with the towel like a child. "I don't wanna go."

Nico scowls (Jason doesn't see it but he also doesn't see the way Nico's cheeks turn a little bit red at the sight of Jason's boxers laying on the ground) and taps his foot against the carpet, "I'll give you half an hour before I take back Eyebags."

Before Jason can even bother to whine again, Nico's already slammed the door loud enough to wake up their neighbor Clovis.

He wastes ten minutes just laying in bed, challenging Reyna to QuizUp and losing by a landslide in myths and folklore before he stuffs Eyebags somewhere safety in his closet and drags his feet across the hall to the bathroom for his shower.

When he's all nice and clean (it's been three weeks, thank God) and feeling slightly better, Nico manages to get him out the door and onto the public bus before Jason realizes that he doesn't know who Hazel is and that he's never been to her place for dinner before. Hell, he's never had dinner with Nico before and they're roommates.

"Hazel's my half sister and she insisted I introduce you two," Nico answers while keeping his eyes on the window as if he can read Jason's puny mind. "She's twenty but acts forty, best behavior or you'll think my angry voice is the cry of a newborn giraffe."

Jason wonders if Hazel is dark and gloomy like Nico, if she has long black hair like his and dresses all goth and chic and has pounds of black make up splattered on her face. He wonders if her place only has a three colored scheme of black, purple, and red, and he wonders if she uses a coffin as a coffee table. Jason wonders if she'll cook them deep fried bats with horse radish and serve their blood as a drink with a lemon wedge on the side. Most importantly, Jason wonders if baby giraffe's even cry.

"Don't be so nervous," Nico says after Jason realizes he's gripping the armrests a little too tightly. "Hazel is really nice, you'll like her."

"What if I screw up and she sends me to the pits of Tartarus." Jason bites his bottom lip and figures this is what anxiety must be.

Nico suppresses a grin and nods at Jason, "Then I'll have to go drag your useless self back out."

And that makes Jason chuckle (first time after Leo dropped by and literally dropped on the floor because Nico left his collection of Mythomagic strategy books in the middle of the living room, but how the hell did Leo not see them anyways) and he shakes his head in disbelief, "Are you trying to say you can't live without me?"

Jason's too busy being oblivious and recalling the time Leo had fallen to notice how Nico's mouth falls open and close and his eyes blink rapidly before he regains composure and stares back out the window. "Literally yes because you pay half the rent."

The rest of the ride is quick and fairly silent as Jason has accepted his doom and Nico gave up trying to reassure him after the first attempt. There's a whine or two from Jason but when they get to Hazel's he discovers she really is a nice girl and that her home is warming and sweet, and she has a smile that could cause emeralds and diamonds to pop right out of the ground, as if saying "please have us!"

"Hi Jason, nice to finally meet you!" Hazel smiles so sweetly that Jason feels a little confused about her and Nico being related at all.

"It's nice to meet you too," Jason smiles back and he feels the anxiety completely wash away.

"Nico's told me so much about you," Hazel winks and Nico groans into his hand.

This only makes Jason chuckle, "Really? I just discovered your existence only today."

"Ah, classic di Angelo," Hazel jokes and leads the two to the dinning room. "Frank'll be here in a few, then we can eat, it isn't much but Nico's told me about how hard things have been and I just—"

She doesn't get to finish because Nico shoves a dinner roll in her mouth and then proceeds to pretend absolutely nothing happened. Jason just grins as he looks down at all the glorious food displayed for them and he… He nearly bursts into dance mode.

"These are all my favorites…" He looks at the lasagna with three different cheeses to the steaming bowl of baked potatoes. He enjoys comfort food more than most people, sue him.

"Yeah, Ni—" and Hazel's cut off again as Frank enters with a silly hair cut that they make fun of for the rest of the evening.

"Thanks," Jason says when they're back on the bus, his stomach incredibly full and his heart feeling a strange mixture of both light and heavy. It's like the weight of The Break Up has ascended but a new feeling is causing the blood to flow twice as hard in his chest, and he isn't complaining.

"It's just dinner at my sister's." Nico says and his face looks a lot softer at night, more at peace and more relaxed. Or maybe it's because it's just him and Jason riding the bus right now.

"I know, but… Thanks."

Nico hums a response and then he goes back to pretending that Jason doesn't exist and the other wakes up the next day, cleans his room, washes the dishes, does his laundry, and returns Eyebags to Nico's bedroom.

Okay no, he keeps Eyebags, but that's only because Nico refuses to actually hug him himself.


End file.
